Yowzah–today I was thrilled to learn that I actually have some happy, regular readers who are interested in what I have to say! Because I haven’t been picked up by google (yet?) and don’t get a ton of comments, I tend to think that this is just an exercise for myself–to see (especially in VeganMoFo) if I have what it takes discipline-wise to keep a blog. How refreshing and encouraging it is to hear, either through the grapevine or directly, that I’m reaching folks! So whether you’re an occasional reader, a frequent reader, a non-commenter or an avid one, thanks! The thought that you’re there gives blogging zest.
On the flip-side, it makes me feel guilty about not having blogged in a couple days. (Not that you’re out there chewing off your fingers waiting for something new to read, but it does add a measure of responsibility, knowing you’re there.) The disappointing truth is that there wasn’t much extraordinary coming out of our kitchen this weekend. Saturday and Sunday were rather glum because of work we did towards recovering the stolen bike. (It seems very unlikely that we will recover it, but we did the flyer/walking around the neighborhood/talking to the neighborrhood-alliance President thing anyway.) We ate a lot of pre-packaged food: a Kashi pizza, heat-and-eat dumplings, and more veggie patties of various stripes than I care to mention. Sunday I made raspberry muffins for a Process Theology conversation group–muffins, my culinary summit for Sunday. :-/
Tonight, though, was book club! Each month a group a small group of friends gathers for a pot-luck and conversation (with tons of unrelated gossip) around a featured piece of lit. Because October is my favorite month, I claimed it months ago. We read in common Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Since I’m too tired to write my own description, here’s a link to the associated wikipedia page. Basically, Ray interweves a story of South Georgia land, its plants (long-leaf pine & wiregrass) and its creatures (assorted) that is centuries older than she and her people are (the ecological narrative) with her own memoir of growing up in on this radically-altered landscape; specifically, in a junkyard with fundamentalist parents. It is a beautiful story that can be difficult to bear at moments, especially if you have bipolar disorder in your family; nonetheless, as I noted at book club tonight, it was not the tragic moments that coaxed tears from my eyes, but the soaring ones that stole my heart and infused it with rapture.
Appropriately, the theme of the food was “that which evokes your childhood/homeland.” I made my momma’s sweet tea–
- 8 tea bags steeped briefly,
- squeezed and poured over nearly two cups of sugar that waits in the bottom of the gallon jug
- then topped off with water
Sinfully sweet. I also served some good ol’ deep-southern buttermilk cornbread, cooked in the skillet with drippings from my vegan gravy; cabbage a la mamma–
- slice off a half of a big cabbage; core it; cut into bite-sized pieces
- put a little water in your pan
- add some eBal (Earth Balance), salt and white pepper
- add cabbage, stir well; steam til the cabbage is delectable mush!
and finally, a pot of Grit collards. The collards were the only thing that weren’t really like my mom’s at all, because when she makes collards she doesn’t have much “pot likker” (pot liquor; the juice from the cooked collards that lots of folks like to sop up with savoury cornbread). I use a recipe from Athens Georgia’s famous vegetarian restaurant, the Grit, which always renders a ton of tasty pot likker. It went especially well with tonight’s cornbread.
I was grateful that B brought mashed potatoes, H, a gorgeous blueberry cobbler, J, a lentil bake, E, a mashed carrot-and-potato dish that seemed to be infused with dill and chives, and K, a perfectly-pureed pumpkin soup. We ate like queens and gossipped like songbirds. Looking forward to next month!
This just in: the katzerole Unix in a box:
